One of the best ways to ensure that the 7 billionth child born will live in a safe, healthy and sustainable world is to focus on what women want and need. Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute found there are 215 million women worldwide who want the ability to time and space their pregnancies, but do not have access to effective methods of contraception. Women want to be able to deliver children safely and provide for them.

It’s an interesting way to say, “Good heavens, people, why are we still anti-birth-control when we’ve become like rabbits in Australia – breeding ferociously, with no predators to weed us out?”

The comments on the article, of course, provide the answer to that question, and a beautiful rebuttal:

Peterb555 Woman are empowered as mothers and housewives, that’s their god given domain, the empowerment western culture seeks to hand out is an anti Christ Lesb spirit…a woman is the pillar in the home….her domain is over her kids…is that to be taken lightly?? western culture has sired a generation of reprobate children of the devil, ahh let’s see…we need to apply these crack bogus tactics in every part of the globe…brilliant!

I don’t recommend reading the comments thread. There’s a lot of appalling ignorance about issues like rape, and how contraception works. Some people think the article is blaming women for overpopulation, and I think that’s also based on appalling ignorance: the article was saying that women want family planning options without outlining what prevented them from having them. The answer, of course, is their governments. But to highlight that would look like criticism of emerging countries’ governments without corresponding criticism of first world governments whose track record on family planning is, at best, not good enough. Other commenters ask why shouldn’t the onus be on men to provide birth control, which only even begins to make sense if you are blissfully unaware how many pregnancies are caused by rape. Which I suppose many of us were at some point, but seriously, people, it’s time to look up some stuff on the internet already.

As some of the commenters point out, most of the trouble boils down to religion. Various religions promote having lots of babies, because they’re hoping to outnumber That Other Religion. Most religions promote men running women’s lives, and maybe people who by definition lack wombs just aren’t the best choice for telling women what to do with them. And then religions are used by people with severely misogynistic agendas, like George W. Bush, to render an entire advanced population more ignorant than it was before the internet. Sometimes these people see themselves as sincerely religious and actually believe they’re doing what their god wants, but it’s also very common for them to see religion as a tool to get what they want. Sadly, religions don’t do enough to hound these people out. And don’t forget that American evangelicals launched a big campaign a few years ago to convince us we needed to waste the Earth atrociously, because its ruination would prompt the Second Coming. Which is interesting, since the closest any translation of the Bible gets to addressing whether one should be an environmentalist or not is when it suggests we should be “stewards” of the planet. They must have the Whatever You Want Me To Say Bible from Rationalization Press.

Getting religions to clean up their crap would be a big step forward in fixing our sustainability issues, but in the short term – you know, until that happens, and rape becomes an anomaly rather than a norm, and no one’s forcibly sterilized anymore, and men stop trying to run women’s lives – ensuring all women have access to family planning would be a helpful step.

“Most religions promote men running women’s lives, and maybe people who by definition lack wombs just aren’t the best choice for telling women what to do with them.”

^ THIS!
And most guys will never even think about the possibility of a different viewpoint. I constantly hear about how much it hurts to get hit in the testicles, but I never heard about menstrual cramps until I started getting them.

People that want to turn back time on women to when they were basically only wives and mothers makes my blood boil. First off, I can’t have kids and have accepted it and am fine with it. I am happy majoring in Radio-TV-film and being married to my feminist husband…..My life would be HELL if I lived back then….I just want to ask these peeps…so what about women that want more out of life then to be a mom and wife(and a submissive wife at that) Apparently a lot of right wingers would be perfectly fine with a lot of unhappy women as long as misogynistic men are happy.

Also notice how pretty much all women who seem to revel in their own oppression are religious, or into extreme BDSM…..most normal women do want families but would laugh in the face of anyone who tried telling them they couldn’t be educated, vote and all the good stuff that women have today.

Your post reminds me of a Cracked.com article I read about smart people being unable to get laid or something and it mentioned that countries where women have access to education results in low birth-rates. I thought this was a good thing. All the dude-bros in the comments said, “YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!?!? WOMEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO GO TO SCHOOL, DURR HURR”

Which I suppose many of us were at some point, but seriously, people, it’s time to look up some stuff on the internet already.
Unless you get your information from body building forums, of course. For the ignorant among us, these are good places to learn that women are only good for sex because ostensibly they never do anything else which provides any value to society besides lying back and spreading their legs. wide.

This was an excellent post, and spot-on too. To Ted Turner, all I have to say is “DUH”, and, to the evangelical godbags out there, “DUH YOU FUCKING NITWITS”.

And most guys will never even think about the possibility of a different viewpoint.
Hahahhaha. I am currently being trolled on another website for suggesting the possiblity, that, just because a teenage girl attracts a lot of unwanted male attention, that she is not a slut, and that calling her a slut is nasty and demeaning, and point this out makes me a TROLL. WHAT AN STUPID LESBIAN BITCH I AM.

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